Posted on 05/06/2009 5:36:09 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Although the top brass of the Wehrmacht had a low opinion of Italian military power, Hitler now pressed for a military alliance with Italy, which Mussolini had been in no hurry to conclude. Staff talks between the two high commands began in April and Keitel reported to OKW his "impression" that neither the Italian fighting services nor Italian rearmament were in very good shape. A war, he thought, would have to be decided quickly, or the Italians would be out of it.
By mid-April, as his diary shows, Ciano was alarmed by increasing signs that Germany might attack Poland at any moment and precipitate a European war for which Italy was not prepared. When, on April 20, Ambassador Attolico in Berlin wired Rome that German action against Poland was "imminent" Ciano urged him to hasten arrangements for his meeting with Ribbentrop so that Italy would not be caught napping.
The two foreign ministers met at Milan on May 6. Ciano had arrived with written instructions from Mussolini to emphasize to the Germans that Italy wished to avoid war for at least three years. To the Italian's surprise, Ribbentrop agreed that Germany wished to keep the peace for that long too. In fact, Ciano found the German Foreign Minister "for the first time" in a "pleasantly calm state of mind." They reviewed the situation in Europe, agreed on improving Axis relations with the Soviet Union and adjourned for a gala dinner.
When after dinner Mussolini telephoned to see how the talks had gone, and Ciano replied that they had gone well, the Duce had a sudden brain storm. He asked his son-in-law to release to the press a communiqué saying that Germany and Italy had decided to conclude a military alliance. Ribbentrop at first hesitated. He finally agreed to put the matter up to Hitler, and the Fuehrer, when reached by telephone, readily agreed to Mussolini's suggestion.
Thus, on a sudden impulse, after more than a year of hesitation, Mussolini committed himself irrevocably to Hitler's fortunes. This was one of the first signs that the Italian dictator, like the German, was beginning to lose that iron self-control which up until this year of 1939 had enabled them both to pursue their own national interests with ice-cold clarity. The consequences for Mussolini would soon prove disastrous.
William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
“Pact of Steel” update at #2. Standings at #3. Boston is in first place in both leagues.
5/6/39 NYT Price: $0.03
The New York Times is expected to raise its cover prices again since they last raised it 11 months ago from $1.25 to $1.50. To try and make up for plummeting advertising revenue, they are expected to raise the newsstand price from $1.50 to $2.00 during the week and from $5 to $6 for the national Sunday edition, effective June 1. The New York edition will cost $5, still a one-dollar increase.
Strictly based on inflation the cost would be $0.46 or probably $0.50 with rounding.
When you post something from +70 years let me know. I want to know what it's going to be like 70 years from now. :)
Why’s the date: May 6th, 1989?
Well, it looked like an ‘8’. And my first thought at seeing the headline, Glenn Beck rejects all of Hitler’s demands? Well, good for him!
I thought the same thing, when I first saw the headline!
Good for Glenn Beck!!!!!
me too
LOL, me three.
bump
Substitute “Obama” for “Hitler” and the headline becomes timely...
Glenn Beck?
William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
From the moment when Molotov became Foreign Commissar he pursued the policy of an arrangement with Germany at the expense of Poland. It was not very long before the French became aware of this. There is a remarkable dispatch by the French Ambassador in Berlin, dated May 7, published in the French Yellow Book, which states that on his secret information he was sure that a Fourth Partition of Poland was to be the basis of the German-Russian rapprochement. "Since the month of May," writes M. Daladier in April 1946, "the U.S.S.R. had conducted two negotiations, one with France, the other with Germany. She appeared to prefer to partition rather than to defend Poland. Such was the immediate cause of the Second World War." But there were other causes too.
Winston S. Churchill, The Gathering Storm
5/7/39 update at #16. Case White and wooing Stalin.
I guess it's easy to look back in hindsight at the incredible foolishness of such an attitude, but there were some that saw through Hitler's nonsense.
But not the Poles, apparently.
More like today to me.
William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
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